ong the huts once more, another great mass of Bakoni
suddenly appeared, fleeing for their lives. We sprang forth to meet
them, sounding our shrill war-whistles, but these valiant warriors,
seeing Zulu shields thus suddenly in front of them, halted, and,
turning, strove to flee back the way they had come. But their rear
ranks, panic-stricken, crashed against them, forcing them on; yet the
fear of the enemy they had seen in front--for they could not have
noticed that we were but two--was so great that they would not advance,
and the whole of that armed crowd stood shouting and shrieking, crumpled
back in the most deadly confusion, not knowing which way to run. At
last, turning off from their original course, they streamed wildly out
upon the plain, we two pursuing them and laughing as we had never
laughed in our lives.

But they had not far to run, for the further "horn" of our army had
swung round here, and blindly they rushed upon the lines of Zulu spears,
even as they had intended, but a brief while back, we should rush upon
theirs. A half-circle of tufted shields, and of blades now reddened and
reeking, hemmed them in. The air quivered with the shrill buzzing
war-whistle. _Whau! Nkose_! before a man could have counted fifty,
there was not one of those Bakoni left alive. Then a mighty shout of
laughter arose from the slayers.

"Ho, Untuswa!" they cried. "We thought these dogs had devoured thee.
And, thou, Mgwali! Ha! we have been paying them for your deaths.
Greeting, sons of Ntelani! Greeting!"

Thus clamoured my comrades. But I made no reply. Up went my right
hand, my weapons dropped upon the corpses of the slain Bakoni, and I
cried aloud the _Bayete_; for I saw that I was standing in the presence
of the King.

Umzilikazi was on horseback. He had led the first onset in person; but,
finding with what a craven and cowardly foe he had to deal, he had
dropped back in disgust, ordering his children to stamp out the lot,
save such as it was customary to spare.

"Welcome, Untuswa!" he exclaimed. "I thought you dead--that these
cowardly dogs had slain him whom I had sent as my voice. Yet here you
meet us--you and the boy yonder--driving hundreds of armed men before
you like so many cattle!"

"No praise is due to these dogs that we still live, O Great Great One,
for they have killed our slaves, and rushed upon us to kill us, but we
fought our way to yonder wall, whence we defied their whole nation.
The